Text

“These pieces are genuine experiences — penetrating, insistent, necessary works that fully occupy
the time of their realization and hearing. Repeated listening changes them: they literally sound
different, richer, more complex, with new elements and relationships emerging, transitions becoming
more (and sometimes less) dramatic.”

Political Ritual, the eponymous release by the Québécois electronic music
duo of Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine
Morin, presents itself as a mystery, white print on a grey cover, a series of lighter,
vertical oscilloscope intrusions appearing almost possibly accidental. The roles of the two
performer / composers — here improvisers — are not distinguished. Each side of the LP presents a
piece about twenty minutes in length. Each is almost monolithic, made up of electronic and
electronically altered layers.

Specific textures emerge intermittently, through fields of static and waves of droning sound
that sometimes move with the inevitability of lava, that flux of molten stone, metal, and ash, or
perhaps an oil spill or an approaching tsunami. While the LP itself is free of annotation, there
are brief hints in the press release, including a description of the group’s music and the titles
of the two sides. Field recordings and instruments come upon by chance enter the fold.

The first side, Cérémonie, is strongly rhythmic, whether the beats are
heard as patterns of static or feedback. There are two marked shifts in the work. The first is an
extended keyboard improvisation beginning around the seven-minute mark, perhaps “a wedding
harmonium bought from an old, hungry man in an Indian village improvises modal lines,” mentioned in
the online text. The second is a sudden break and bass-ward glissando at the eighteen-minute mark
that suddenly shifts the whole forward movement of the music. That doesn’t sound like much, but
it’s a major event in this context, a wholly new plane.

The second side, Projection_cathodique, begins with chant amidst the
static and drones. Its developing rhythms are oscillations, pulses rather than beats. The piece
repeatedly cycles towards a crescendo, its materials echoing, the texture thickening; when the
patterns change, there’s a sudden turn from tension to repose.

These pieces are genuine experiences — penetrating, insistent, necessary works that fully occupy
the time of their realization and hearing. Repeated listening changes them: they literally sound
different, richer, more complex, with new elements and relationships emerging, transitions becoming
more (and sometimes less) dramatic. Searching this music for answers to what politics and ritual
share, only the commonalities of mystery, form, and duration emerge — politics and ritual
indistinguishable from one another and from consciousness itself.

Text

“The ‘politics’ of Political Ritual remain somewhat unclear, but its
ambiguity is addictive.”

Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine Morin
have released an intriguing new 12” with Ambiances Magnétiques: Political
Ritual. The record presents two 20-minute pieces that work more like ‘sound sculptures’ than
songs. They take as their subject the detritus of sound, the unwanted buzzes and resonances of
technology. On Political Ritual, these sounds move out of the corners and
rubbish bins and into plain sight. You are made to confront sound as it really is: caked in surface
noise and sonic debris.

Political Ritual is a record of two halves. The first, ‘ Cérémonie ’, judders like a truck over bumpy terrain. There are moments of what sounds
like hyper-engineered studio-production trickery. But in fact, many of these are from acoustic
sources, like cellos and organs played in unorthodox styles. There is even the introduction of “a
wedding harmonium bought from an old man in an Indian village”.

The unanswered questions left by ‘ Cérémonie ’ are concluded by the
record’s second half: ‘ Projection cathodique ’. Here, elements of
traditional ‘musicality’ creep in, like the bassline that broods over the piece. The ‘politics’ of
Political Ritual remain somewhat unclear, but its ambiguity is
addictive.

Text

“The album is a great experiment on impressions”

As Political Ritual, Maxime Corbeil-Perron and
Félix-Antoine Morin offer sequences of disparate tones ~ sometimes tonal
opposites, often at war ~ and invite listeners to hear their own metaphors. The album is a great
experiment on impressions, as this simple prompt leads to all manner of ideas. One of the most
obvious (and amusing) is that the acronym PR is itself shared with another more famous word
pairing.

We live in a world on the brink of chaos. This simple fact affects all new art, whether
consciously or not. “ Cérémonie ” is a study in contrast, beginning in
fluttering electronics and solid, growing drones, but eventually incorporating organ-like tones and
a bit of melody. One might glean an impression of chaos v. order, modernity v. tradition, sense v.
nonsense. By the halfway mark, a new dominant sound emerges, a tempo-driven vibration that sounds
like a misread CD-R; this is, however, a record. The music continues to play; the sound continues
to intrude, with no end in sight. When stronger voices (beats) emerge, the mechanism rights itself
for a brief period, but then changes form and returns. One might liken the effect to the game
Whac-a-Mole, arriving at the conclusion that nothing will ever be perfect, that systems will always
fail, and that even if one area is fixed, another will break. From this conclusion will stem one’s
worldview. Either it’s worth trying, or it’s not. It’s worth going on, or it’s not. The evidence of
this artistic statement is a vote for the latter.

Side B is a different animal: subtle, soothing, and calm. The first sounds of “ Projection_cathodique ” are those of water and chimes. This initial context makes the
dark chords seem more ritualistic than foreboding. Is this still Political
Ritual? Is this the longed-for nirvana that arrives at the tail end of all our efforts,
making every ounce of suffering worthwhile? Or is this the sound of narcotic escape, a surrender to
barbiturate entertainment, a desensitization to the world as it is? The two artists again provide
little clue, but perhaps their very obliqueness is a clue: think for yourselves, people, we don’t
have to tell you what everything means! All we will say is that the piece is lovely, like hands
gently passed across doorway curtains, activating beads and bells. Compare the two sides and
realize that they live in the same twelve inches of space, like a flattened globe. Make whatever
conclusions you may.